


Subdivisions

by Aliana



Series: Do No Harm [12]
Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Anachronistic, Fourth Age, Gen, Gondor, Minas Tirith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-18
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-02 03:00:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aliana/pseuds/Aliana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starbucks, commercialism, pedagogy, Haradric cuisine, and the day-to-day, 20+ years after the end of the War.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Subdivisions

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LiveJournal in January, 2007. A sequel to [Fallen](http://archiveofourown.org/works/364151/chapters/591380).

It's Wednesday and I'm standing in the main atrium of the Houses, explaining a prescription to an elderly lady from the Fourth Circle, when I spot them again, with their shorts and hats and their digital cameras. I tell the lady she's free to go, and I make my way over to where the tourists are clustered.

"…fortunately, the Houses sustained only very minor damage during the Siege," the young guide is saying. "Now, if you look off to your right, you'll see the entrance to the very ward in which King Elessar healed the Lord Faramir, the Lady Éowyn, and Master Meriadoc the Halfling from the Black Breath"—appreciative murmurs, camera flashes—"and to the left is the entrance to the Houses' dispensary, which is among the largest and oldest in Middle-earth. Now if you'll just follow me this way…"

"Hi, Piri," I say as she turns around.

"…you'll see one of the Houses' distinguished healers," she says without missing a beat. She's very good—I'll give her that. A round of clicks and whirrs; I rub my eyes from the camera flashes. "The healers in Minas Tirith must complete one of the most extensive apprenticeship systems in Gondor, isn't that right, Mrs—"

I clear my throat. "Piri!" I say. Fifteen tourists are staring at me. One little boy is picking his nose until his mother, a small woman in a Red Sox shirt, shoots him a deadly look. "We're quite busy today, and I was wondering if you could be so kind as to redirect your group—"

"Of course," Piri winks at me. "Mrs. Narrator was here during the Siege, you know," she grins to the tourists in a stage-whisper. Murmurs, more flashes. "Hard to believe, though, she looks so young!" Wink.

"…if you could redirect your group out of the Houses," I finish.

"Ah, those were dark, dark days, the days of the Siege," says a voice beside me. It's the elderly lady from the Fourth Circle whom I thought I had sent home already. Leaning on her walker, she takes a step forward as all the tourists' eyes are now on her. "Dark days, indeed, with the armies ringing the City all around," she murmurs sagely, a profound look on her face. A veritable strobe-light of flashes.

"Mrs. Halineth," I whisper to her, "you weren't even  _here_  during the Siege; you went to Lossarnach to stay with your niece—you told me yourself."

"Dark, dark, days," Mrs. Halineth repeats.

"Is there time for questions?" asks a portly man clutching a Lonely Planet guidebook.

"Piri," I hiss to the tour guide, "redirect.  _Now_. And I want to talk to you this afternoon."

"Oooh-kay," she whispers to me, looking like a kicked puppy. She turns back to her group, all smiles. "Certainly, Mr. Kelliher, but we're a little pressed for time at the moment, so we'll talk as we walk. Now…who likes catacombs?" Chorus of affirmations.

"Thank you!" Piri waves to me and Mrs. Halineth as she leads the group towards the exit.

"Not at all, my dears!" coos Mrs. Halineth. "They seemed nice, didn't they?" she asks me.

I rub my eyes. "Just take your medication, Mrs. Halineth."

*

Summertime is the worst; in the name of commerce and convenience, the Guard eases the Circle Clearance restrictions during these months; even all the way up here on the Sixth Circle it's noisier than a Weekend Market. I elbow my way through the crowds, past the souvenir-shops and the money-exchange booth next door to the Houses. Piri is already at the coffee shop when I walk in, her finance text propped open before her; she's a smart girl, working her way through school.  
  
"Hel- _lo_ ," she sings, snapping the book shut as soon as I sit down. "I got you a coffee—dark roast, hope that's all right."  
  
"Thanks, Piri. Um, you really didn't have to." Coffee is the latest imported trend in the City, and I have to admit I don't mind it. She smiles and makes a dismissive gesture with one hand.  
  
"Oh, it's nothing."  
  
"Look, I know you mean well, but as you've been told before, the Houses are a working hospital, not a tourist attraction."  
  
"Oh, I  _know_ ," she sighs. "But they've got so much historical significance! The gardens are so beautiful, and so many famous figures have been there! No one could visit Minas Tirith and  _not_  want to see the Houses."  
  
"They can admire from the outside."  
  
"Well, last week, Em—she's my supervisor, and  _so_  smart—was talking about some kind of combination package deal. Like, there could be supervised visits, and obviously the Houses would take a generous cut of the proceeds."  
  
"Piri, this is not—"  
  
"I noticed that ad in the paper; you guys are trying to raise funds for a new pediatrics wing, aren't you? Well, this would be a great way to do it, and you wouldn't have to spend any money on it, yourselves—"  
  
"I just don't think it's—"  
  
"Hi, Honey!" My husband sits down next to me. "Hope I'm not interrupting anything important, but I just saw you in here, and—" He pauses. "Oh, hi, Piri." According to my husband and his colleagues, the White Tree Tours, Limited guides have made themselves something of a presence around the barracks, as well.  
  
"Hello, sir!" she chimes. "How is Captain Bergil's shoulder doing?"  
  
"Um...it's better. He's just laying off the spear-work for a couple weeks."  
  
"Great! Tell him I said hi, okay?" Her eyes are shining like she just won the lottery. Actually, she does that a lot, whenever something moderately nice happens, and it kind of freaks me out. I hope nothing  _actually_  great ever happens to her—there's no telling what she'll do, then.  
  
"Okay. Will do." He turns back to me. "Anyway, I was just at the store on my way back from work." He hoists up a grocery bag. "Tell me if there's anything I missed?"  
  
I momentarily forget my discussion with Piri and beam at him. The modern Minas Tirith husband! He grocery shops! My mother should have been so lucky. I peer into the bag. "Thank you! Looks fine, looks fine…um, did you get the dish soap and the oranges?"  
  
"Check and check," he says.  
  
I hold up a neon-hued box of cereal. "Next time, could you get the generic stuff, though?" I should know better by now, but I also add, "I thought we talked about this."  
  
"You know it's just cereal," he replies. "The kids won't eat the generic stuff."  
  
"It tastes exactly the same."  
  
He shrugs. "They're kids."  
  
"I know, we're just…" I put the cereal back. "I thought we were trying to save a little more money from now on."  
  
"One box of cereal. A real catastrophe."  
  
"I'm talking in the long run. In the long run it all adds up. What if Melieth gets married soon? Are we going to have a dowry for her?"  
  
"Well, I recall that your family didn't have a dowry for me."  
  
"Only because you didn't want one. You're weird."  
  
"Oh, so I'm weird because I didn't ask your mom to pay me to take you off her hands?"  
  
"You know what I mean! It's a symbolic thing."  
  
"Look around." My husband gestures at the tasteful muted décor of the busy coffee shop. "No one deals in symbols anymore; they deal in money."  
  
"You don't have to be glib with me."  
  
"I don't think I'm being glib."  
  
Piri is beaming at us. "Oh, you two are so cute! Just like an old married couple."   
  
Piri is a smart girl. Piri is the dumbest smart girl I have ever met.  
  
My husband sighs. "We'll talk about it later, okay?"  
  
"Yeah, sorry. It's fine." I take a sip of my coffee, which is actually really good.  
  
"Okay." He gathers up the grocery bag and gives me a kiss. "I'll see you at home. Bye, Piri."  
  
"Bye, sir!" Piri waves.  
  
"Sorry about that. Old-people stuff."  
  
"No, no, it's all right." She fiddles with her tea bag.  
  
"Where were we?"   
  
"Package deals—your pediatrics wing! All I wanted you to realize is that you have this incredible source of revenue that's going untapped."  
  
"And I want  _you_  to realize that it's not our goal to earn revenue, not for ourselves or for anyone else. We're only supposed to heal people."  
  
"But that takes resources."  
  
I sigh. Her reasoning is actually not unsound, but I'm not about to concede that to her today. "Look, if you really care about this, you should write a letter to the executive board. Until then, no more tours, okay?"  
  
"Okay."  
  
"Promise me, Piri."  
  
"I promise."  
  
"Thanks."

*

Next week my summer intensive care seminar is having its final meeting, and I've promised the kids I'll bring them a treat. They're all crazy about Southern food—all the rage now, apparently—which is why I'm now standing in this tiny curry shop in the Haradric quarter staring at a takeout menu. The air is so thick with spices that my eyes are nearly watering.  
  
"Will that be all, Ma'am?" asks the dark, wiry young man behind the counter.  
  
"That, and a…a number twenty-six, I guess. And a number thirty-four. Better make that two thirty-fours, actually, one medium and one extra spicy. And that will be all. For noon next Friday."  
  
"Very good, Ma'am."  
  
As I wait for the final bill, the proprietress emerges from the kitchen. "Why hallo," she says in her lilting accent, coming to stand next to the young man. "I've not seen you for a very long time!"  
  
"It's because you've spoilt my husband's tastes, Mrs. Ishrani. He says all of my food is too bland, now."  
  
Mrs. Ishrani is small and neat, but she laughs like a fat old man. "Well, he is not spoilt but merely enlightened, Mrs. Narrator. How is the rest of your family?"  
  
"Well, thank you. How is yours?"  
  
"Very well. My eldest boy is quite busy with his new job at the City Council office."  
  
"That sounds wonderful."  
  
"Oh, yes, it's a very good job. Many opportunities. And perhaps he can help this one find a job there, too," she adds, indicating the young man.  
  
"Auntie, I told you a hundred times, I want to be a guitarist," he says, a note of exasperation in his voice.  
  
"Yes, yes, well, you can work at City Council until you become a good enough guitarist not to starve."  
  
"Auntie, I practice every day!"  
  
"And you also need to eat every day, yes?" she says, waving him away and handing me my receipt. "Anyway, they are all very busy at City Council now, my son tells me. This new planning project, with the new houses outside the walls."  
  
"You mean the subdivisions?"  
  
"Yes, yes, the new streets and everything. They've just been approved."  
  
"I thought that was just a rumor."  
  
She shrugs. "No, apparently they have just gotten the go-ahead; huge project. You should stop by the offices and see the models if you get a chance; quite impressive, Mrs. Narrator, quite impressive."

*

"You should  _see_  the plans. Ugly pastel houses and driveways in cul-de-sacs, just outside the City walls. And they all look the same, too. How are people supposed to remember where they live if the houses all look the same? I can't believe they're developing the Pelennor. The  _Pelennor_!"  
  
No one says a word. One of the young infantry medics slowly raises his hand.  
  
"Ma'am?" he says.  
  
"Yes, Corporal?"  
  
"With all due respect, Ma'am…what is the procedure for today?"  
  
"Yes,  _Ma'am_ , aren't you going to teach them some new things?" my husband echoes him, eyebrow raised. He's leaning against the back wall of the old barracks classroom.  
  
"Yes,  _Sir_ , as a matter of fact I am."  
  
There are a few snorts of laughter until he shouts for quiet.  
  
"Now, come around close," I say. "Can everyone see? This is a basic type of suture that's suitable for field dressings…"  
  
After the lesson, the soldiers cluster into groups to practice their stitches on pigs' feet.  
  
"For the last time, let it go," my husband says to me. "There's nothing you can do about it."  
  
"Don't you care? They're calling it 'Pelennor Fields Quality Homes' or something insipid like that. Don't you think the Pelennor should be preserved as it is?  _You_  fought on those fields, your friends fought on those fields."  
  
"Well, maybe I'd  _like_  to see houses and kids there for a change, instead of seeing piles of the dead in my mind. Have you thought about that?"  
  
In fact, I haven't thought about that.  
  
"Doesn't matter," he shrugs. "Just let it go."  
  
"Ma'am?" One of the men presents his sutured pig foot to me for inspection.  
  
"Very nice. These stitches are a bit uneven in this middle section, but that's an excellent beginning."  
  
"Thank you, Ma'am."  
  
"Redhion," my husband says, "what's your opinion on the planned developments?"  
  
"Well, in all honesty, sir, my fiancee and I were looking at some of those models." He glances at me. "We'd much prefer to live in the city proper, of course, but we don't want to get gouged."  
  
My husband nods. "Skyrocketing property values."  
  
" _Ow_!" cries one of the men on the other side of the room.  
  
"Firendir's stuck himself," one of the others announces.  
  
"Shut up!"  
  
"Shall I try another one, Ma'am?" Redhion asks.  
  
"Certainly."  
  
"Maybe you're so concerned about preserving the past," my husband says after Redhion goes back to his work station, "that you're forgetting to think about the future."  
  
"Well, thank you, Mr. Very Special Hallmark Presentation."  
  
"So maybe the subdivision's going to be an eyesore. But maybe it's also what the City needs right now."  
  
" _Ooow_!" Firendir wails. My husband sighs, walks over to him, and smacks him on the side of his crew-cut head.  
  
"Look, if you're going to be a soldier, you're going to have to learn to DEAL WITH A LITTLE PAIN."  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"Good. Carry on."   
  
"In my day," he says, walking back to me, "they were much tougher."

*

Summertime is the worst. The crowd on the Fifth Circle is even thicker than usual—and I'm late as it is for the board meeting. I start trying to elbow through the throng as politely as I can, when I hear noises of alarm, see bits of plaster and broken glass.  
  
"I'll bet it's those activists!" someone says behind me.  
  
"What?" I whirl around.  
  
"Anti-globalization activists! They've put a bomb in the coffee shop!" says a scowling older man.  
  
"Shush, Dad!" says a young woman. She comes over to take his arm, fanning her fingers over her eyes to shade them from the midday sun with her free hand. "It's just this faulty temporary scaffolding they've put up for the new shop window," she informs me. "I was there—the flimsy thing just collapsed."  
  
I push my way a few people forward and find a city Guardsman, one of my husband's old friends. He nods when he spots me, which I appreciate. In times like these I prefer a nod to a smile.  
  
"No big worries, just a lot of noise," he says when he sees me. "Cheap new construction," he comments.  
  
"So I've heard. Anyone hurt?"  
  
He opens his mouth, but by that time I'm already stepping forward.  
  
"Piri?" I say. She's sitting with her back to the wall, blood running down both sides of her face. She's touching her head carefully and contemplatively, as if this is some intriguing new problem.  
  
"Hey," she peers up at me, a dazed look in her eyes. "The damn thing just—" She throws up her arms and makes a exploding noise.  
  
"Don't move," I say, and I stoop over her and pull a clean cloth from my pocket. She's thin and languid against the wall. She could be my daughter.  
  
"Mm, that's a lot…" she begins.  
  
"Yeah?" I ask. She's got a few shallow scrapes on her scalp; messy, but not serious.  
  
"Lot of people," she finishes with a sigh. Miraculously, her White Tree Tours, Limited employee polo shirt is still spotless and immaculate. "I'm sorry," she adds.  
  
"Sorry for what, Piri? Press up here. On the cloth. Keep pressing."  
  
"The tours. They're stupid."  
  
Now it's my turn to sigh. We're crouched amidst the broken glass. I look around and see the pale ankles and tennis shoes of tourists. "It's all right, Piri. I understand where you're coming from."  
  
"Do you?" she smiles, and there's that glazed-happy look in her eyes again, though this time I can't tell whether it's the cheerfulness or a concussion.  
  
"Yeah, it's…don't worry about it. Look, here comes the cavalry." Another Guardsman's come over with a proper first-aid kit. "She should be fine, just a few cuts," I tell him, and he nods. I get up and look around to see if anyone else needs help (and they will need some help—I know the Guardsmen have it all under control, I really do, but these things are automatic for me; they're my element, and so I move on to the bruised sightseer, and the lacerated Rohirric barista, on to the next and the next) but I just find myself staring for a moment through the shattered picture window to the empty guts of the storefront.

*

I stand on the southeast garden terrace with Elloth, and she brings me up to speed on the board meeting I've just missed. As she recounts the newest developments, I find myself chewing on my knuckles, a bad habit I've developed recently. Some people pick up hobbies as they get older, but I only pick up habits.  
  
"First of all, I can't believe you voted without me," I say when she's finished.  
  
She rolls her eyes. "Oh, you know very well that the meetings can go on with just one member missing." Sometimes, when I was annoyed at Elloth, I used to imagine her middle-aged and dumpy, and that would soothe me. But I can't do that any more, all these years later, because now, even after two kids and too many forty-five hour weeks, she's still elegant. When the old herb-master retired six years ago, Elloth was promptly named the Houses' very first head herb-mistress. "And your one measly vote 'nay' wouldn't have tipped the decision, at any rate."  
  
"And that!" I cry, seizing on my second point. "I can't believe you guys voted to allow the tours! That's ridiculous."  
  
"Oh, come off it. This is why I didn't want to talk to you; you always make such a to-do of everything."  
  
"I do not. Just this."  
  
"You should read Piri's proposal letter. It's actually pretty well-reasoned."  
  
"No, thanks."  
  
"It'll only be for the main atrium and the gardens, the historic portions; it won't interfere at all with any of the patients and the hospital business; you know the rest of the board wouldn't stand for that any more than you."  
  
I fold my arms; I'm losing ground. "It's not that; it's the conceit of the thing," I sniff.  
  
"Oh, for chrissakes. Don't get ideological on me. If the projections are correct, do you have any idea how much more quickly we can get the new wing built? Who knows, maybe we can even hire more staff—so  _that's_  the conceit of the thing. Aren't you always saying that you're the pragmatic one around here?"  
  
"There's nothing un-pragmatic about reverence for the past. Reverence for what works."  
  
"I'll tell you what  _is_  un-pragmatic. Not wanting to move forwards just for the sake of the past, no matter what that past might be."  
  
I let my arms drop to my sides, and I sigh. "I'm an old curmudgeon, aren't I?"  
  
She shrugs, smiling. "Maybe. But I don't hold it against you."  
  
"I just—" I shake my head and point to the circle below us, thronged with tourists and big white signs advertising postcards and exchange rates, the huge glass picture windows that make gleaming gouges where the old storefronts once were. The McDonald's and the KFC. "I can't recognize the City, anymore. I can't recognize my home." I lean against the battlements, resting my forearms on the worn-down flat part.  
  
"Yeah," she says, stepping forward to lean beside me. "I know. On the really bad days, sometimes I just want to burn it all to the ground."  
  
"So why don't you?" I grin. "No one would suspect a model citizen like you. Me, on the other hand—"  
  
"Because it's…" she screws up her mouth. "It's good, I guess. Some of it. The economy's never been stronger. New jobs everywhere. There's the university, too. It's a trade-off. You have to take the bad along with the good."  
  
"I just want things to like they used to be."  
  
"How did they used to be?"   
  
"Not as crowded. Not as noisy."  
  
"Like before the War? When we were kids?"  
  
I think of all the empty, boarded-up houses, the eerie silent streets and the sunken-eyed old people. "No," I admit.  
  
"What about after the War? What about then?"  
  
And I see the demolished lower circles, the blood and bones and funeral-fires and the ruined courtyards and statues. "Okay, I get it. I'm unreasonable. And don't think you can pull that Socratic thing with me. I'm not one of your dumb apprentices."  
  
"I was just wondering what it was you really wanted. It was never really this good, at least not during our lifetimes."  
  
"All right, fine. I want the glorious lost golden age of Gondor, with a booming financial district but no tacky souvenir stands. I want prosperity and happiness without fast food chains and ugly townhouses."  
  
"So maybe you want something that never existed."  
  
I snort. "When did you get to be such a sage?" (And as much as I hate to admit it, I sort of miss the young Elloth, too, miss the girl whose most profound statement any given week was on the presence or absence of split ends in her hair.)  
  
She smiles. "Probably when you started being an old curmudgeon." A pause. "And my apprentices aren't dumb."  
  
"Al?"  
  
"Okay, he's not the brightest. But the rest of them are okay." She shrugs. "No, but I understand. I feel like a relic a lot of the time, too." She stares out over the Fifth Circle. "I never really got over it, I guess. I never really got over the War."  
  
"None of us did. My kids don't get it. Piri doesn't get it. But there's this— To have this one thing, that just defines the rest of your life." I shake my head. "And most days are good days, and everything's all right, and then…" I swallow. "Something happens, just stupid things, a remark or a noise. And then it's like I'm nineteen again, stumbling around. Like I've never gotten anywhere at all."  
  
"Well, you  _haven't_  gotten anywhere," she grins. "You're still stuck in this godforsaken city, aren't you?"  
  
"You know what I mean. It's like everything that's happened since then hasn't made a difference at all."  
  
"Forever young."  
  
"Ha! If only." I shake my head. "What are we going to do with all this, Ell? The crowds and the chain restaurants and all this shit?"  
  
"That's a stupid question."  
  
"Oh, yeah?"  
  
"We suck it up and keep going. That's what we've always done."  
  
The stone of the battlements is hurting my arms where I lean against it. I stare down at the crowds, at the racks of picture postcards and brochures that discuss in dramatic and thrilling language the whole strange history that's led us all here together, tourists and natives and expats, here to this moment in time. And off in the distance, if I squint, I can see the roads and driveways they're carving out beyond the City walls, neat blobby fingers of asphalt reaching out into the fields.  
  
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so."  
  
"Well, missy." Elloth straightens herself up with a businesslike clap of her hands (one of the habits  _she's_  picked up). "I need to go back to work, and I daresay you do, too."  
  
"See ya, Ell," I say as she walks off.  
  
"Oh, by the way…" she's saying. "The Board thought it would be a nice touch to have some tour guides that are actually also on staff here…" Two quick steps backwards. "So I might have…" Three steps.  
  
"Elloth…"  
  
"Signed you up. For once a fortnight. Ta!" I turn around to go after her, but she's bolted. I'll have to kill her tomorrow.

*

And I would rather gouge my eyes out than admit this to anyone, but I'm actually sort of enjoying it. Just a little, mind you. Not a lot.  
  
"And here," I say, "on the walls of the main atrium, you can see several ancient friezes. The one on your left depicts the story of Isildur and the One Ring." Camera flashes. "The Houses are one of the oldest continually-operating medical facilities in Middle-earth." I almost trip over the hem of my skirt, but my audience is gracious and says nothing; I still haven't got this walking-backwards thing down yet. "Much of Minas Tirith's original stonework was destroyed during the Siege, but this is an excellent example of early Third Age craftsmanship. Question, sir?"  
  
"Yes," says an older gentleman in one of those floppy fishing hats. "I'd read that most of the city was evacuated during the War."  
  
"That's correct."  
  
"Where were you when it all happened?"  
  
I smile. We are busy people, all of us. We have photographs to take, reports to write, children to go home to.  
  
"I was here," I say. "I was right here. Let's move on, shall we?"


End file.
